


remember when i moved in you, and the holy dove was moving too

by flintsjohn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Character Study, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, brief internalized biphobia, brief michael/maria, everything is implied including the sex, michael central, reference to sexual harassment, references to michael/ofcs and michael/omcs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:45:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18395114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flintsjohn/pseuds/flintsjohn
Summary: i've done my best, i know it wasn't much,i couldn't feel, so i learned to touch.Or: Michael Guerin and his relationship to sex through the years.





	remember when i moved in you, and the holy dove was moving too

**Author's Note:**

> phew, it's done. i've been thinking about this fic for like a month and i'm very proud of how it turned out! the working title for this was 'michael and sex', and that's basically the fic.  
> thank you thank you THANK YOU to Cait ([@lacecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacecat/pseuds/lacecat)) for betaing and encouraging me, you are the bestest (go read her fics!!! she's awesome!!!)  
> kudos and comments are always welcome, and feel free to come yell at me on [tumblr](https://bichaelguerin.tumblr.com) about michael guerin.  
> title/summary from hallelujah by leonard cohen, specifically [this](https://youtu.be/YrLk4vdY28Q?list=RDMMYrLk4vdY28Q) performance.

Hereʼs the thing: Michael likes sex. Consciously, thanks to the little voice in the back of his head, he knows that statement hasnʼt always been truthful. 28-year-old Michael likes sex. 15-year-old Michael was scared shitless of being touched by anyone that way, because he only knew the kind of touch that was violent or worse yet, undesired. He avoided getting close to people like the plague, and flinched when people he didnʼt know tried to reach for him, especially in the context of foster homes. He went through his days trying to repress the desires of a normal teenager and on top of that, tried not to let his powers get out of control when he became overwhelmed by what he was feeling. 

16-year-old Michael desperately yearned to feel normal, to have any semblance of an adjusted teenage life like everyone else around him. Losing his virginity seemed like the most achievable item on the list, considering he was living in his truck and nobody but the Evans twins wanted to associate with him. He knew, from working at the junkyard and having cougar moms that took their cars there look at him in ways that made his skin crawl, that if he put any effort in it he could be flirty, even charming. Fortunately for him a couple of the girls in senior year thought the same - though none of those experiences were anything more than fumbling in the dark, nothing to write home about. He kept them to himself and bit his tongue when the topic came up with his siblings. 

17-year-old Michael is about to have sex with Alex Manes and he might very well be freaking out. Sure, he’d noticed guys seemed to have the same effect on him as girls did before he started hanging out with Alex, but he never actually chose to put any effort into that attraction. But now he’s kissed Alex and he’s not sure he can stop, even though it’s all moving so fast between them and suddenly heʼs shirtless in Alexʼs shed, holding Alexʼs hands to his chest and telling him that heʼs the first person heʼs doing this with that heʼs actually liked. Michael knows, he _knows_ theyʼre moving too fast and that they should probably stop and talk but despite that, he also knows that the words leaving his mouth are true. Then Alex is kissing him and he forgets about every doubt he may have. They fall onto the couch and Michael is on cloud nine, Alexʼs hands roaming everywhere, and then theyʼre both naked and Michael is feeling _so much_. There’s a lot of fumbling between lube and condoms and trying to figure out what the best position is for them, but they’re both laughing the tension off and it’s the happiest Michael has ever been. Heʼs pretty sure he makes the whole shed tremble when he finally bottoms out inside of Alex, and he canʼt breathe as he looks into the other boyʼs face, happiness shining in Alex’s eyes even through the few tears that have gathered at the corners. Michael promptly kisses those away and proceeds to lose himself inside of Alex. They manage three hours of happiness, of learning each other’s bodies inside out, before everything goes to shit. When they see each other again after that, after Rosa’s death, they’re barely able to touch each other, though it gets easier in the little time they manage to spend together during the summer. They don’t have sex again.

18-year-old Michael is a broken shell of what he had been only a few months before. He’s still trying to find his footing in a town that he’d planned on leaving, where his own siblings think he’s a murderer, and where Alex Manes doesn’t live anymore. Sex isn’t really that high on his list of priorities – at the moment, the first place would be occupied by finding a job and stop being homeless – but he does find himself yearning for the contact sometimes. He just knows it might take him a while to get to a place where he can even trust people to be that close to him again, and even then, he’s conscious of the fact that he’ll probably need to work through some hard shit before even contemplating an actual relationship. So he focuses on whatever work he finds, focuses on his research with the ship and loses himself in the science, and pushes thoughts of soft lips and gentle smiles to the back of his mind.

The first time he hooks up with a man after Alex leaves, when he finally works up the courage to even go after one, he freaks out. Well, that’s not entirely right. He lets the guy rut against his thigh in a dark corner of the seediest bar in Roswell, beard scratching against his neck where the man has buried his face. He closes his eyes and tries not to think about how wrong the guy’s hands feel on him, pulling him closer, and just extricates himself with a grunt when the man finally slumps against him. He leaves without another word, a ringing in his ears that prevents him from hearing the stranger’s calls. He doesn’t try to pick guys up again after that. He tells himself, stick to women, that’s what’s safe. Don’t get yourself into any more trouble than you already have. His hand and his heart ache and he berates himself every time his mind wanders to thoughts of Alex and how right he’d felt with him that day, before Jesse Manes walked into the shed.

It takes a couple more years for Michael to feel completely comfortable in his sex appeal, even with women, and it’s around that time, with a steady job at Foster’s ranch and an even steadier presence at the Wild Pony for regular booze and hook ups, that he meets a woman. She looks to be only a few years older than him, maybe 24 or 25, but she has a presence about her that draws him to her. They flirt and she introduces herself as Miranda – “Call me Randy”, she says – and calls him _cute_ , of all things. She stays in town for two weeks for something work-related. Michael never really asks for more details, but he spends most nights during those two weeks in her hotel room. Nights with Miranda are different from what he’s experienced before. By now, he’s had his fair share of one night stands, but this is something else entirely. With others, it was always little more than sex in an alley, or in a bathroom stall, or if it went really well, in a car, but Miranda takes her time with him, tells him exactly what she wants and how she wants it, and he just goes with it. She shows him how to please a woman and how to get his own pleasure from it. When she leaves at the end of the two weeks, she kisses him on the cheek and wishes him well. After that, they stay in contact, and for the following years, she’s the only person Michael allows himself to be with multiple times.

25-year-old Michael saunters into the Wild Pony like he owns the place. His nights usually end in one of two ways: picking a fight or picking someone up for sex. Maria has banned him for life, repeatedly, every week, especially when he goes with the former. The latter, she handles a bit better, most of all if she has him in her bed to quiet her grumbles over unpaid tabs. They have an easy enough, booty-call style arrangement that works well for the both of them. She reminds him of Randy in the way she isn’t afraid to ask for things, to put him in his place when needs be. Over time, he and Maria get more comfortable with each other, to the point where, one night, Michael shows up to Maria’s door flustered and tipsy, and just downright asks her to fuck him. After that, she’s the one he turns to when he feels the need. She asks him, only once, if he’s actually into guys. His skin crawls with the need to bolt, but she holds him close and runs her fingers through his hair like he deserves this kind of affection, so he just admits to it. It’s the first time he’s said the word bisexual out loud to another person. She doesn’t press on as to why he doesn’t actually try to hook up with men, and he’s grateful for it. He doesn’t mention the fact that in the time they’ve been sleeping together, calls on Michael’s part coincide with the presence in town of one Alex Manes. Maria doesn’t seem to notice, and if she does, she’s gracious enough to avoid the topic.

27-year-old Michael is comfortable in saying he likes sex, and that people seem to enjoy their time with him. He and Maria still have their arrangement going, though these days it’s a little rare for them to end up in bed together after a night at the Pony. He circles through the bars in Roswell when needs be, because there’s only so many locals he can actually have sex with, but the steady flow of tourists coming through the city gives him easy targets. He’s eased up on his own no-men rule, letting himself flirt a little, and if there’s some grinding sometimes, well, no one’s ever questioned him on it. Most days, it’s still a choice between bar fight and casual sex – in Michael’s eyes, they’re both valid ways quiet the chaos in his head and to release pent up stress, which these days is almost always caused by Max and his self-righteous lectures. He usually just rolls with whatever the vibe for the night is, and particularly with how threatening Maria looks if he’s at the Pony.

Then, just as Michael has found his footing in the spot that has so nicely been carved out for and forced on him in Roswell, Alex Manes rolls back into town, uniform-clad and sharp-edged, and Michael falls down so hard he feels his bones rattle. It’s inevitable, really, how fast they fall into bed together after ten years. There’s very little spoken between them at any time, and Michael knows, just like he knew ten years ago, that it should worry him, but what he has with Alex has always been so easy that talking is more of an afterthought, a sense of regret that slams into him when Alex is gone and he’s alone in an empty and cold bed again. Most of his words during the times he and Alex are together are directed at making sure Alex is comfortable, that he isn’t putting too much pressure on his leg. Michael can tell Alex is bothered by it but is too proud to say anything. In the few days they’re together, they spend their time re-learning each other’s bodies, cataloging the difference the past decade has made. Michael finds himself running his hands over the hard planes of Alex’s body in wonder, remembering how soft the very same spots had been ten years before, and tells himself that the change isn’t just a physical one – he can tell, even just by looking at him, that this Alex is closed off and reticent to people getting close to him. On his part, Alex also seems to be unable of getting enough of Michael’s touch, holding him close when they’ve both come, locking his good leg around Michael’s waist to keep him inside him just that much longer. One particular night, out of breath and with a silly grin on his face, Alex points out, “You got better at that.” Michael just shrugs, settles on his side so he can trace Alex’s chest with the tips of his fingers, mumbles, “Told ya, lotta casual sex.” He doesn’t give Alex enough time to agonize over the implication, because then he’s swinging his leg over Alex’s, settling in his lap, and grinding down his hips slow and dirty, making Alex moan. The cacophony of noises in Michael’s head comes to a halt when Alex rolls them and gets inside of him for the first time. He’s trembling, overwhelmed, and Alex is touching him oh so gently, and Michael would expect for this to be the moment he finally loses control, but all he knows is peace, looking up into Alex’s eyes. Still, they don’t talk. They don’t talk about how Michael comes blinking away tears, or how he holds Alex that much closer, or how he doesn’t stop touching Alex for a moment, even when they separate, almost as if he has to make sure he’s real. Michael only breaks the silence to mutter something along the lines of “I can’t believe I waited so long to do that”, and even then, there’s no reply from Alex other than a chuckle and a sloppy kiss pressed into Michael’s neck. Michael doesn’t say anything when Alex leaves before morning or when he shuts him down in fear of Isobel finding out the one time he stays. He just spends the morning trying to push away the thought of how right it’d felt to wake up to Alex’s kisses, or how eager he’d been to respond to Alex’s touch, or how much he felt he _needed_ that touch to begin with. Weeks later, when Alex comes to him at the junkyard demanding they finally talk, get to know each other, Michael just lets the dam break. 

28-year-old Michael is discovering the difference between having sex and making love. It still sounds incredibly corny to him every time he thinks about it, but he has no other way of describing it. Sex with Alex has always been pretty epic, from their very first time as inexperienced teens, but since they’ve actually started dating there’s been a shift, and Michael doesn’t really know how else to describe it – they were having sex before, and they’re making love now. He doesn’t say any of that out loud to Alex, but he knows they both agree on that. There’s something inexplicable in the way slow and gentle sex makes Michael lose control over his power in a way he never really has before. In the first weeks after they start sleeping together again, Alex has to stop them multiple times to get Michael to focus on his powers, which always leads to Michael being incredibly flustered and to Alex assuring him that he takes it as a compliment, really. If Michael put some thought into it, he’s pretty sure that he’d come to the realization that it’s because nobody ever treated sex with him the way Alex does now, not even Alex himself. Every person he’d been with had been after one thing and one thing only – pleasure – and he’d been happy to give that to them and lose himself in the process. Rough and fast and dirty fit his aesthetic and he rolled with it as though it didn’t bother him, but the truth is that it did, and nobody had ever cared, least of all himself. But now – now Alex treats him like he’s something precious, like he wants to take care of him, like he wants to give back every bit of attention Michael gives him. Alex makes sex about intimacy and trust and not about carnal pleasure and even though at times it leaves Michael feeling confused, he can’t deny how much he enjoys it.

30-year-old Michael is going to only have sex with Alex for the rest of his life and he couldn’t be happier. Not that in the past three years he’s slept with anyone else, but the fact that they just finalized it is surreal to him. Actually holding a piece of paper that attests their marriage, exchanging rings and vows, having a goddamned _reception_ with all of their friends and family – none of it was ever in Michael’s plans. He says as much to Alex when they’re finally alone, still wired and overwhelmed by the day’s events and the sheer amount of affection – physical and otherwise – that he’s been on the receiving end of. Alex smiles at him gently as he pulls Michael closer by his tie and undoes the buttons on his shirt one by one. After, when they’re sated and panting in each other’s arms, Alex asks him if married sex is everything he’d expected. Michael smiles a stupid little grin and the ceiling and turns to kiss his _husband_ silly, just to prove to him that it is in fact everything – and much more – than what he’d expected.


End file.
